Norwegian Gaute Granli has endeared himself to us many times in the past with his antics, recently with the tape Ingen Pottetsekk Whatsoever. His new album Animalskt (UNHINGEDUH001) appears to be a solo turn featuring Gaute at work in the studio, with guest vocalist Urd J. Pedersen appearing on one track. This time around Gaute seems bent on making a futuristic rockabilly record using electronics and loops and keyboards as well as guitars, but with plenty of 1950s reverb on the drums, and singing delivered in that echoed “haunted” tone which characterises the best garage records of 1960s punk. He also forces himself to strum and play in a mock spastic-primitive style, full of mindless repetitions and totally dumbed-down riffs. The minimal production style which may result from making home recordings in the first place is used here to dramatic effect, with no concessions made to conventional production techniques and plenty of rough edges and unfinished surfaces to further excite the listener. All of this makes Animalskt something which resembles a far more “musical” offering than his this player’s usual crazy-noise assaults, so if you’re ever been put off by the latter now is your chance to investigate. It also demonstrates something of Granli’s craftsmanlike skills in the studio, his very natural abilities; you get the sense he only has to pick up a musical instrument and things start happening instantly. In many respects this reminds me of Jad Fair’s solo studio records of the 1980s, such as Everyone Knew…But Me and Best Wishes. Recommended. From 29th November 2017.

Gaute GranliAnimalskt LP (Drid Machine)Fans of unattractive anti-musical nonsense, you’re in luck! I stumbled upon this Gaute Granli on the strong recommendation of mysterious WordPress fanatic Roland Woodbe, he a master of all unappealing musics, and I want to spread the good word to you, too. From what I gather, Granli is a Norwegian artist who may or may not have played in a group called Freddy The Dyke (uhh), and I may have to investigate that soon because Animalskt is really doing it for me. The opening cut is a long-dwindling guitar note with some muttered accompaniment, and it leads into a track that sounds like a broken accordion brutalized in rhythm, at least until the electronics show up, if you want to call their appearance “showing up”. I’m hearing something between the lonesome guitar-led misery of Jandek, the foolhardy electronic antagonism of Null & Void and Severed Heads, the alternate-dimension approach of Reynols, and the single-minded lunacy of Kraus and Hartley C. White, although Gaute Granli is clearly beholden only to his own particular whims. Not much of an emphasis on rhythm or percussion through the album, but rather a focus on the strained insistence of continuing forward with these songs, bilious and fragile as they may be. For all the singing, I can’t understand a word, but I get the impression that even if I was a native Norwegian I still wouldn’t have the foggiest idea of what’s eating Gaute Granli.

Norwegian weirdness. Droning off-balance situations with raggedy guitars, voices, and random percussion. Odd things provide odd counterpoint to other odd things. Haphazard slide guitar and incomprehensible vocals throughout. One track sounds like a pair of sneakers tumbling noisily in the dryer. To be honest, I couldn’t really make heads or tails of this CD. Compared to this, the Bren’t Lewiis Ensemble sounds almost normal.

the stavanger 4tet's second, and as it turns out their last album consists of five poly-rhythmically gluttonous, twerk inducing songs that are far more dramatifc, dark and repetitive in nature compared to their first LP. Released on vinyl in 300 copies.

This fine split cassette from Norwegian sound artist Gaute Granli and Denton, TX noise duo Ruffle proves that even in 2016, there’s still new, strange sounds to be strangled out of a guitar.

Side A: Four short tracks from Gaute Granli. Broken, gnarled, detuned guitar sounds, wailing vocals, demented electronics lurking in the background, primitive rhythms. If I was forced to pick out the Texans on this split just listening blindly, I’d be fucked!, because I swear I hear a backwoods twang in Granli’s playing. These tracks don’t have the volume of his live performance in the KFJC pit from last year, but they’re no less raw and unsettling. Check out his other stuff – both his own solo work and as one half of Freddy the Dyke.

Side B: Ruffle (Rick Eye on guitar and Princess Haultaine III on electronics) brings a louder take on the guitar-centered piece. Rick Eye provides the live-wire skronk spark, Princess pours on the junky electronic fuel, and everything combusts in this ten-minute trash fire explosion. Burn it down, y’all!

This no-label tape was released in 50 copies with a release show at Load-In, Denton. There are still a few copies available through Discogs. It is also available for digital download through Ruffle's bandcamp. It features 4 new songs from Gaute Granli on the a-side and an untitled track from Texan duo Ruffle (Princess Haultaine II and Rick Eye) on the b-side

One of our favourite Norwegian noise-men is Gaute Granli, who is one half of Freddy The Dyke and who we last noted with his zany solo cassette Velkommen Til Forus on the Skussmaal label. What we like is his sense of fun. He sets about making strange sounds with a lack of inhibition, acting almost child-like and innocent in the best sense. For Ingen Pottetsekk Whatsoever(SKUSSMAAL SKUMC02), he decided he wanted some physical product to sell before he went on tour in South-East Asia (as is well known, Indonesia and Thailand boast the largest fan-base for crazy Norwegian noise of anywhere in the world), and so he assembled choice cuts from some of his nuttiest studio recordings made in 2014. Granli works with percussion, synths, and guitars, treating each instrument as a new toy in the toybox, and occasionally adding absurd vocal wails to the playful bric-a-brac.

The inventiveness he exhibits here is easily on a par with, say, Jad Fair when he made solo records like Great Expectations andBest Wishes in the 1980s, flailing and rampaging around the studio with no obvious plan in mind. However, Granli is not playing around with varispeed or processing or effects, but rather trying out instrumental ideas, combinations, notions and games. Even if these musical doodles lead nowhere, as I must admit they often do, he’s having a whale of a time while the magic marker is in his hand. No blank wall is safe from his childish scribbles. The results this time around are also surprisingly minimal, such that we only hear two or three instruments at once, uttering scant and picayune phrases, and their bizarre attenuated sounds are combined in stark, angular pairings. None of the manic punky energy of Freddy The Dyke here, either; in fact the whole tape is largely mysterious and sombre in tone, abstract wonderings in an empty darkened cathedral, especially with the dirge-like ‘Choral Supreme’. From 10 April 2015.

side AWake-up time trills as sparse free drums accompany during an air raid in the Spin Zone. As the centrifuge chair does its job, our ears collect incidents over time, patches from the sermon on the Tom, where Alvin the Chipmunk spoke through the crush of a storm on the void side of the tape. Promoter hands the lead guitarist a canceled check. The guitarist fails to notice and continues to plug away as his greasy dark hair noodles to the floor, sweeping the black paint, attracting dust from 1972. Everything slows down in the gateway to the stars, an eerie warp of a retro time warp. The red side of the paint is given enough lube, just enough not to dry up, to keep it going through the action of deconstruction. Small rubble and trance mount and tumble.

side B

The alarm sets it off again, into the Twilight Zone, where the mumbler has replaced Rod Serling. Chromatic guitar rides the sideways carousel. Turn the camera back to its original place to turn the carousel back to its original place. Beatbox percussion trickles as support system, affected by “Come Together” or maybe “Don’t Come Around Here No More.” Shrill tones like the high diapasons of an Italian score mix with stoned Hollywood-Vietnam guitar and the occasional tom. The tones play nice together, holding hands with their eyes closed, at the cliff, preparing to jump into yet another side of the void. Conductor taps the stand; nothing the conductor does or says will silence the theater-goers’ smart phones. They are buckled in, ready for simulated stimulation + three dimensions. The hard science spits dust and rough edges. The seats rumble once the ghost starts tackling the cajón. There’s a constant sense of alarm: is this real, just a test, or part of the fantasy, the price of admission?

Released in 100 copies just ready for his south east asian tour, Granli's second solo tape is a selection of lo-fi cuts taken from various recording sessions through out the last half of 2014. As a result the tracks move in many individual directions with a wider array of sounds including drum-kit, more analogue synthesizer, twangier guitars, and it's even in stereo!

During the past months Skadne Krek have been working on new material towards a second album and they are finally playing a concert in Stavanger for the first time in two years. The occasion is a brand new event series called Utyske, and it boasts a fantastic line-up! On 19. march Skadne Krek will be sharing the stage with Batalj, Horacio Pollard and Brutal Blues at Tou Scene. (Staer, unfortunately had to cancel)

Gaute Granli's second solo tape is almost ready for release on Skussmaal, he will also be doing a tour in south east asia which will be announced shortly.

We are proud to present Freddy The Dyke's first european tour, this time accross central/western europe crossing through and doing shows in Norway, Sweden, Czech Republic, Switzerland, France and Germany. Naturally, the Skussmaal releases will be available at the shows. The tour starts in Oslo this saturday

"He moans vocally and wordlessly into an echo chamber with sinister intent; his guitar throws out shapeless strums and aimless riffs like a baboon casting coconuts from a tree; and percussion effects stumble blindly about the room like a hooded goblin."

-Ed Pinsent

Thought this review deserved some special attention, big thanks to The Sound Projector

at last, Skussmaal records are available at Staalplaat based in Berlin. If you live in europe (except norway) it's now the best option for buying the Skadne Krek and Freddy The Dyke LPs online. www.staalplaat.com

You can order it by contacting us. It will be available in selected shops very soon, updates will follow. Freddy The Dyke also has a facebook page now! https://www.facebook.com/freddythedyke

FREDDY THE DYKE LP - 250 copies

Following the split tape with Blodsprut, this is the first full length LP from Stavanger-duo Freddy The Dyke. The album is a natural continuation of the material from the tape digging deeper into their industrial hard core futuristic sound, still bearing influences from both tribal music and 90's electronica. The LP runs 30 minutes and is mixed by Anders Hana. It is enclosed in a beautiful 4colour Drid Machine-silkscreened sleeve with design by Yasutoshi Yoshida.